Miss Powell, a remarkably earnest young woman of rare moral and intellectual worth, has a grand field, and opens her work with good promise. Her first aim is to do away with tight-dressing. She believes that when women have deeper breathing they will have higher aspirations. That when women will apply conscience to their dress, they will be prepared for more important truths.
In the great attention given to gymnasiums everywhere, we see the dawn of a new day of physical and mental power in woman. Mrs. Plumb's institution in this city, where hundreds of girls are trained every year, is a complete success.
EQUAL EDUCATION.
Miss Anthony:—Your letter came into my hands after some delay. I hasten to reply to your inquiries. Our college is young yet. The first class of two graduated last year. Two young ladies are to graduate at the close of this term.
We receive ladies and gentlemen on the same terme and conditions; take them together into the recitation-room, where they recite side by side; require them to pursue the same course of study; and, when satisfactorily completed, give them degrees of the same rank and honor—Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts to gentlemen, Laureate of Science and Laureate of Arts to ladies. Both sexes are required to pursue the same course of study, with the exception of civil engineering and political economy, which are merely optional studies with the ladies.
We have two departments—Academical and Collegiate. The sexes are about equal in number in each department. We have only about twenty in the Collegiate Department. Half of these are ladies, among whom are some of our best in Mathematics, Languages, and Natural Sciences.
We have also a Theological Department, to which ladies have access. We have received applications from only two yet. One, Miss Olympia Brown, is pastor of a Society in Weymouth, Mass., and is succeeding very well. She is a graduate of Antioch College as well of our Theological department. The other is now here.
Lombard University, Galesburgh, Ill., receives ladies, and takes them through the same course as gentlemen, and gives them equal degrees. I deeply sympathize with you in your efforts to raise the character and improve the condition of woman, though, perhaps, I should not be quite so radical as some in your Convention. Your cause is a good one, and I pray Heaven that it do good.
Principal of the Collegiate Department St. Lawrence University.
Genesee College at Lima, New York—a Methodist institution—opens Its doors equally to women, and has graduated several young ladies, Then we must never forget to mention and bless Oberlin for its pioneer work in the equal education of women. It was Oberlin that gave us Lucy Stone, Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Sallie Holley, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, to speak early and brave words for woman and the slave. And Antioch College that graduated the Rev. Olympia Brown. Mention too should be made of Rey. Lydia A. Jenkins, who has been a successful preacher among the Universalists for the last eight or ten years, and is now settled at Binghamton, New York.
Of the Medical Profession it should be stated for the encouragement of the young, that there are over three hundred graduates from the several medical colleges for women, and that there is scarcely a village throughout the country but has its woman physician of greater or less skill. In New York city there are many successful physicians besides the Drs. Blackwell. Dr. Clemence S. Lozier has a practice of $15,000 a year, and owns two fine houses, all the proceeds of her own perseverance, In Orange, New Jersey, Dr. Almira L. Fowler is very popular, with a paying practice of $5,000 per year, besides a large gratuitous service. In Philadelphia are Dr. Hannah E. Longshore, with a $10,000 per annum practice, then there are Drs, Ann Preston, R. Tressel, H. J. Sartaln, E. Cleveland, J. Myres, and others, with practices ranging from $5,000 to $2,000. In Utica, New York, Dr. Pamelia Bronson is a successful physician. In Albion, is Dr. Vail. In Weedsport, Dr. Harriet E. Seeley. In Rochester, Dr. Sarah R. A. Dolley numbers among her patrons many persons of wealth and fashion, who but a few years ago ridiculed the idea